MND to acquire 1,000 AI drones this year

ASYMMETRIC DEFENSE:
The Ministry of National Defense budget assessment report this year showed that it would also procure miniature, ship-based and surveillance drones

• By Aaron Tu
  and Shelley Shan / Staff Reporters

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) plans this year to obtain nearly 1,000 drones equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning abilities as part of its efforts to bolster the military’s combat capabilities, the ministry said in a report delivered to the Legislative Yuan last week said.

Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) is today to brief lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee on details of the report on the implementation of the Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan Purchase (海空戰力提升計畫採購).

The ministry has included drone development as an important part of military building plans after its wide application was seen in the Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last year and Russia’s war in Ukraine which began in 2022.

The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, a corporation that is part of the ministry’s Armaments Bureau, has been commissioned to research and develop medium and large-sized military drones and attack drones with military specifications.

The ministry is also working with private contractors to develop commercial drones for use by the military.

The increased use of drones on battlefields has shown their importance in modern warfare, the report says.

Aside from commissioning the Chungshan Institute and private contractors to build drones, the Armaments Bureau and the Ministry of Economic Affairs should discuss ways to shore up defense capabilities by integrating domestic sources and production capacity, and removing influence from the Chinese supply chain, it says.

The report says that the military plans to acquire 968 drones of seven different types this year, including attack drones produced by the Chungshan Institute as well as “second-generation short-range uncrewed aerial vehicles,” and “miniature,” “target acquisition,” “carrier,” “surveillance” and “land” drones purchased from private contractors.

The report also says that the military has taken AI and machine learning technologies into consideration when acquiring drones, such as those with “one-click takeoff,” “autonomous return,” “path planning flight,” “dynamic target tracking,” “coordinate distance calculation” and other capabilities to reduce operator load, flight risks and improve operational efficiency.

Emerging AI technologies would be included in future development plans, it says.

The ministry’s budget assessment report this year showed that it would acquire “target acquisition,” “miniature,” “ship-based,” “surveillance” and “land” commercial drones from this year to 2027, which would increase its total number of drones to 3,231.

The ministry’s budget plan also shows that it is procuring 201 new generation “short-range uncrewed aerial vehicles” jointly developed by the military and private contractors. No public data on the total number of attack drones is available.